Red Dawn
by Linx Flame
Summary: An AU fan fiction in a world based off of the movieverse but more so off of my old X-men RP. Mainly Logan, Rogue, Kitty, Remy, Emma, and Scott. Interesting plot line, and I think you'll enjoy some zany OCs. Bubbles and Hack belong to dey Xagon.
1. Morpheum First Sighting

Author's notes: I wrote this a long time ago and just recently revamped it. Again, the usual X-men themes/ideas/characters don't belong to me, but the original characters and the plotline, as well as some of the settings are mine. I've got another chapter in the works shortly- if I could find the original part of the beginning I would have finished it by now. Stay tuned, Red Dawn should prove an interesting ride.

New York City, New York, USA- July 2005

Waves of vibrations pulsated through a crowd of bodies, swaying rhythmically on the dance floor. Spiked heels pressed hard into black marble as the room illuminated every few milliseconds with a sweep of crimson, gold, or teal, or the bright silver flash of a strobe light. The place smelled like a combination of alcohol and sweat, but the beads rolling down the forehead of a long-haired brunette didn't seem to bother her at all. Wide green eyes glowed seductively behind lengthy dark lashes as her tapered, red-tipped fingers slid through rows of chestnut-colored wavy locks, the ends of her hair falling in a bunch at the small of her back.

The dance moves remained simple enough as the hip-hop music pumped through the night club and everyone on the dance floor seemed to hold one alcoholic beverage or another in one hand. With all of the tipsy people on the dance floor, one would expect that a partygoer might drop the delicate glasses but none had done so that night. She could feel the heat radiate from the guy she danced with as their bodies moved together in rhythm. As the music slowed to an R&B ballad, the brunette's shimmering green eyes conveyed no to the male partner who didn't seem too upset as another eligible lady took her spot. Striding to the bar, the green-eyed woman slid her bare legs carefully onto a leather-topped stool, keeping her black mini-skirt from riding up as she fished through a black pouch around her neck for cash.

"What'll it be?' the trendy bartender asked her loudly over the music, a silvery nametag on his black polo reading Joe.

Spiked, light brown hair adorned the crown of the bartender, but clearly from his stocky stance, accent, and tough guy attitude he hailed from the Bronx, or at least pretended to. The woman at the barstool had to admire the Bronx; they still stood proud despite their humiliating loss last year. Such a shame that those 26 rings and billions of dollars didn't seem to bring anything to fruition in the new millenium except a brilliant t-shirt vendor that told them all to stick those rings someplace else.

"Sam Adams Summer Ale, thanks," the brunette yelled over the music.

Joe from the Bronx nodded and turned away from her. Not that many people flocked to the bar at that point in the night; for now most seemed content with their alcoholic consumption. To her left sat a young couple, side-by-side on the bar stools. The red-haired woman held onto a smoothie of some sort in her right hand while her left hand rested in the hand of presumably her boyfriend. His head tilted in a direction so that it seemed as if he studied every pore on the redhead's delicate, pale hand, but she couldn't tell for sure as he strangely wore red-mirrored sunglasses despite the dark. His clean-shaven face nestled against the soft strands of ruby hair as his other arm snaked protectively around her shoulders. Their intense tete-a-tete didn't interest her at first, but she soon realized that this didn't seem a normal lovers' conversation that she normally would have ignored.

"Do you really think we should be out after all this? A bunch of us almost got killed in the lower levels- one of us did- and we don't know if Apocalypse is really dead or..."

"Jean, it wasn't our fault. Besides, the way the others described his demise, it would be very hard to believe that he'll be back any time soon."

"I know, but Scott..."

"Shh... we're here to relax, right?"

"Alright. You've convinced me." A giggle. "So Mr. Summers, may I have this dance?"

"You know I never pass up a chance to have that body against mine."

"So, you from Boston?" Joe the bartender returned with her beer in hand.

Just as well, she had begun to tune out the couple's conversation anyways. With a toss of her head, she looked up from her hands, which she stared at while listening to them, scrutinizing her latest manicure. A small, flirtatious smile spread across her lips as her mind registered that he had asked her if she came from Boston. Though she didn't feel particularly interested in Joe the bartender, she certainly found interest in ragging on a Yankees fan. She really liked doing that. The brunette knew she ended up in New York for the summer for a reason.

"I attend graduate school across from the home of the World Series champions. That just has a ring to it doesn't it? Boston Red Sox, World Champions."

But Joe didn't answer her question. He froze wide-eyed with his jaw dropped as he stared at the dance floor. The brunette raised an eyebrow at him, trying to figure out if he lived under a rock the past few months and she just broke the news to him. Hearing a strange difference in the noise in the club, she brushed aside her thoughts and then whirled around, trying to register just what had happened.

Her eyes too grew large as everyone on the dance floor stared at a giant ball of red light, hovering just a foot above the tallest head. Either this red light constituted some supernatural phenomenon or the club had quite a lighting system. Funny though that Joe the bartender would look surprised by it. The bright ball, brightly luminescent and shaped like a star in the night sky descended towards the people on the dance floor who all stared as it moved towards them, voices speaking in awe of the light as the music continued to pump through the club. No one danced at that moment though. All eyes remained on the red orb. Then, just as quickly as it had appeared, it enshrouded the whole club with this red flash.

The brunette crossed her arms defensively over her face as it washed over her, but the red light just gave her a bit of a tingling sensation. When the light seemed to clear, the brunette lowered her arms and blinked a few times. The club seemed eerily silent, yet louder somewhat as the music seemed to flow more loudly through the club. But only a handful of people still stood on the dance floor.

One, a girl with blond waves, clutched onto a blue-collared shirt sleeve. Clothes piled on the floor, drenched in water, alcohol, and glass. The girl didn't seem cognizant of her surroundings yet. The once-festive flashing lights provided a constant reminder of the emptiness of the club. In slow motion, almost involuntarily, the brunette stepped down from her barstool. A tiny wave of water washed over her toes, just reaching the bar. She didn't bother turning around to see if Joe from the Bronx still stood with jaw gaped behind her. Suddenly as if the water felt like acid, she climbed quickly back onto the stool, pulling her feet up beneath her. Fumbling in her pocket, the brunette pulled out her silver flip phone. Her hand shook as she dialed the numbers.

"Hello, I'd like to report a death... well more like a few hundred actually. At the Morpheum in New York City. I don't know, one minute there was this red flash, and the next ninety percent of the clubbers disintegrated. Basic elements on the floor."

The brunette heard a pause before she received a response. The woman who she'd seen holding the shirt made her way to a booth, clutching the shirt against her with her knees to her chest as she stared at a single solitaire diamond on her left ring finger. To her right, the couple who's interesting conversation she'd listened to before scanned the area, as if they played detective of some sort. They stood at attention, the man holding one hand to his sunglasses and the redhead in a daze of sorts, green eyes glazed over.

"My name? My name is Ailyna Norrington..." A pause. "Yes, from Boston. My father is one of the joint chiefs." Another pause. "You'll connect me?" Another minute.

The other survivors had left the cluttered dance floor at this point and moved in towards her as if flies following a bright light, listening to her voice. Why she appeared so calm when they felt so shocked seemed impossible to comprehend but she knew exactly what had happened. Though still visibly shaken, she sighed, relieved to hear her father's deep voice on the other end of the phone.

"Oh Daddy... it's horrible. I know what I saw. You said I shouldn't tell anyone, but Daddy- it was Red Dawn." 


	2. Welcome to Xavier's

As the long black car pulled up to the gates of a large Georgian mansion, she found herself noting the superior architecture and the fact that the Xavier Institute for the Gifted looked far more majestic than the pictures in the government files entailed. Her chauffer paused momentarily at the two story, wrought-iron gates attached to thick brick walls that surrounded the complex. As they approached the main building, driving along past beautifully kept flowerbeds, Ailyna could tell a lot of effort went into the upkeep of the gardens and the house itself. Sharp green eyes took in more than just the normal scenery as well.

Ailyna noted the locations of the flowerbeds which concealed the weapons beneath the mansion grounds and the points of entry and exit that appeared hidden from plain view. Her father's security clearance gave her this information, though basic. She always knew his passwords for security clearance. He could never remember them completely so he trusted her to know his code despite the penalties he faced if the government knew. Ailyna never abused the clearance, but she did know more than the average civilian. The couple in the club she observed conversing just before Red Dawn's appearance seemed familiar to her for a reason. Jean Grey and Scott Summers, also known as Marvel Girl and Cyclops, leader of the X-men. She certainly knew more about them than they about her.

After the incident at the Morpheum, Daddy insisted on the protection of his little girl. After the incident with Stryker at Alkali Lake the government reached an uneasy truce with the X-men for the past few years. Her father used to work with Charles Xavier at Oxford when the US government stationed him there in the special ops division. He always trusted Charles Xavier for some reason, and that reason sealed her fate for the next few weeks anyways.

She really had no complaints. Staying in a school full of mutants would prove to be quite amusing, she knew it. As the limo pulled to a stop in front of the main steps to the Xavier mansion, Ailyna tucked her handbag tighter under her arm. How much manipulation of human psyches could she perform in one week? After all, she could call it research for her master's degree. Besides, mutant brains differed little from human brains (aside from the psychics). The chauffeur slammed his own door shut and Ailyna's eyes followed him as he walked calmly around the back of the car to open her door for her. Ailyna watched with her demure cat-like eyes as he lifted the door handle and offered his hand to her. Taking it, Ailyna stepped out of the limousine and onto the brick walkway just before the main staircase.

Norrington women could not pack lightly, particularly for a stay of unknown time. The chauffeur pulled a group of five matching luggage cases, one at a time, from the back of a limousine. Ailyna knew that her father hired a top-level chauffeur so she did not worry about her large bags as she ascended the gray marble steps to the giant wooden doors that stood between her and the inside of the school. She lifted one manicured hand and curled it into a fist to knock on the large wooden doors, but the door on her right swung open before she had the chance to knock.

The red haired woman stood immediately in front of her. Ailyna quickly recognized her as 'Jean' from the Morpheum and a few seconds later also attached her recognition to that of the woman's identity of Jean Grey, also known to the government as Marvel Girl. They labelled her deceased in the computer due to the incident at Alkali Lake. Yet she clearly appeared very much alive, standing right in front of her. She would think that Scott would know if Jean did not check out as the real deal.

With a sudden realization, anything that she thought could from now on be monitored by Professor Xavier and Jean Grey if they did not still follow that rule of theirs not to infiltrate others' thoughts without permission. Ailyna tried to refocus her thoughts and scramble as many on the back burner as possible. After all, she had run into telepaths before.

"You must be Ailyna," Jean greeted her, and stepped aside to allow her entrance to the main foyer. "Allow me to be the first to welcome you to our school. The professor is teaching a philosophy class at the moment but he is quite eager to meet you. I trust you had a pleasant trip?"

Ailyna could tell from the get go that the forced niceties that came out of Jean's mouth simply symbolized a front for 'I don't like you and I don't want you in my home'. Ailyna knew the whole school probably thought her a spy for the government. Which Daddy assumed she would report back anyways without knowing really that she spied on these people. But Ailyna would not observe the people of the mansion for the purposes of the government. Pissed as hell already with the fact that she basically had to stay here against her own will, Ailyna intended to make her stay as enjoyable as possible for herself.

Something good had to come out of this and she intended to at least make a few friends and maybe something more than that as she learned the lives of some of the most fascinating mutants in the world. Plus she felt that if anyone could solve the mystery of Red Dawn, Xavier could, and she sure would like to know who succeeded in killing all of those people. She felt so helpless every time she played back that scene in her mind that she could not do anything to help those people. Ailyna could not save the guy she danced with, or the fianc of that poor woman that rocked back and forth on the pavement outside the club surrounded by the flashing blue and red lights, or Joe the bartender, whom she had spoken to only minutes before. She hated being powerless to stop something from happening.

"Yes, I'm Ailyna, and may I say thank you for your hospitality, Ms. Grey, isn't it?" Ailyna, recalling herself to reality, purposely left off Jean Grey's title of doctor to see if she couldn't get a rise out of her or if she'd let it slide as an honest mistake. The wily, troublemaking daughter of General Norrington knew how to manipulate and use her charm to get her way. Call it neglect from her parents or just genetics, she simply found making others uncomfortable quite enjoyable. As Ailyna stepped into the main hallway of the Xavier mansion, heels clicking on marble floor, Jean Grey's welcoming look seemed to harden a bit, her ruby-stained lips conveying just slightly less of a smile. Ah, so she hit a nerve. Ailyna knew mutants thought exactly like humans regardless of their powers for the most part. The emotions did not change with the genetics.

She glanced up at the main staircase of the hallway to watch a group of kids practically running down, the smallest of the bunch sliding down the railing with the rest following. The small Asian kid with spiked hair, goggles, and a fancy-looking wrist-watch leapt off the end of the staircase and ran past in a blur of black and neon green, followed closely by a blond carrying a wand who seemed hell bent on catching him. Behind the blond a girl with red-streaked pigtails ran after her and kept looking back distracted by the mouse-brown haired girl who seemed to keep stopping, staring googly-eyed at the wall patterns.

"Dr. Grey, actually," the red-haired woman replied as the four teenagers ran by, visibly making an effort to ignore their antics. Ailyna made a note to figure out just what those four were up to. The strangely dressed teenagers continued their chase down another hallway. As they left she could hear them yelling to each other, and the kids picking up speed. A Frisbee with colored lights came flying down the hall of its own accord, chasing after the four. It reached them before they were very far down the hall and dangled in front of the blond with the wand. She however ignored the phenomenon of the flying Frisbee and continued to run. Dr. Grey at this point seemed to count deep breaths inside her head. Ailyna watched the antics of the assumed students as they seemed to slow down.

"Lexi! Plan x to the ninth three hundred and forty-two!" The small Asian boy yelled past the girl with the wand.

"Uh uh, no way, we are NOT going to teh Carrie with this," the red streaked blond with pigtails, presumably 'Lexi', replied loudly and the chase resumed, flying around a corner and out of sight.

Mutant children, she supposed, caused the same sort of mayhem that regular children did. Jean Grey held her temples at this point, like a headmistress starting to reach the end of her rope. Turning back on her false smile, Jean gestured towards the staircase. The chauffer at this point had brought all of her bags inside and awaited instruction for the further movement of her luggage. Ailyna smiled at him, glad she had enough cash on her for a tip.

"Please, follow me and I'll show you your room," Jean said, beginning to ascend the stairs.

Ailyna followed the tall, lithe, red-haired woman up the staircase. She glanced around once more at the foyer and noticed a shorter, stocky dark-haired man who watched from a doorframe. His body leaned against the frame, hands in the pockets of his brown leather bomber jacket. Clear blue eyes appeared to glance off of every curve of the red-haired woman she followed up the stairs. She almost froze in front of Ailyna, who could see the slight shudder in her step as if Jean could feel his eyes caressing her curves. Ailyna thought he probably did not notice her noticing him, but made sure to take note of the mysterious, stocky man with this penchant for Jean Grey. With competition like Cyclops, the guy had no chance. But she certainly couldn't blame the guy for trying. Most of the government's information on the X-men came from before the fight at the Statue of Liberty; only pieces came from after that, as most witnesses to Alkali had died in the wreckage. She didn't recognize the rough-looking man below. Finally he faded from her sight as Jean led her towards a bedroom.

"This one is yours. Please, make yourself at home. You're welcome to use any of the facilities on the first and second floors, but the attic is a private space for Ororo and the lower levels are off-limits unless you are accompanied by a senior member of the X-men. If you need anything just simply ask one of the students, I'm sure they can help. We will contact you when the professor wishes to see you," Jean held the door open to the bedroom, allowing her and the chauffeur entrance into the bedroom.

She handed her a small golden key engraved with the X symbol to the room by which she could lock it. By the time Ailyna took in the rich stained wood of the four-poster bed, the other elements of the design of the old-style, charming room and turned back around thank Dr. Grey, she'd slipped quietly away. All the better for her to tour the place and get an idea of what she would do to amuse herself over the next few weeks. Ailyna handed the chauffeur a wad of bills before he left her room and watched him leave through the front door while leaning on the banister overhead. Her stuffy clothes she'd worn to meet the staff of the institute grew old. She changed clothes and once again resumed a place on the railing. Decidedly bored, Ailyna locked the door to her room and practically waltzed down the stairs.

She looked like a student of the school more so than a guest and a woman working on her doctorate. Her outfit, aside from the heels, lacked sophistication that she usually exuded. Ailyna had chosen to wear a pair of old, ripped jeans, smeared with brightly-colored paint, and a tight black spaghetti strap top that hugged her curves. Aside from the ankle boots with a slight heel she wore on her feet, Ailyna looked more like a senior transfer than a temporary teacher at Xavier's.

Part of the deal her father made with Xavier, Ailyna would teach the students of the institute while she remained in the mansion while Xavier tested her in all the ways he could think of for the x-gene. Her father desperately needed to know if his little girl actually harbored one of those nasty mutations his military buddies frowned upon. As one of the only humans to survive Red Dawn, she needed extensive testing to verify her genetic coding. While she didn't like the prospect of machines and scientists poking and prodding her, she thought as she made her way down the stairs and through the arch to the main corridor, she did like the prospect of teaching a class. Truthfully she enjoyed Xavier's request more than her own father's.

Ailyna stumbled upon a kitchen area where she found the same pair from the club canoodling at the island in the center. He leaned his back against the marble-topped counter and clasped his large strong hands at the small of Dr. Grey's back. Her hands rested at the tops of his broad shoulders and they once again had their heads together, this time touching forehead to forehead, nose to nose. Most of her weight seemed supported by him, showing her trust in his judgment and strength.

Ailyna noted, however, no gold band on his finger. Interesting. For all intents and purposes she would have thought them married, not just simply engaged. The couple noticed her entrance in their private moment and looked up, embarrassed by the fact that she caught them so off-guard. Ailyna did her best to look sheepish and sorry for interrupting her. A mental exchange passed between the two and they began to vacate the kitchen. Scott cleaned the cutting board he left on the island and Jean put their half-downed glasses of milk in the dishwasher to be run later. Once they finished they linked hands and strolled out of the room.

"Uhm, sorry?" Ailyna called after them, too soft to really hear.

She hadn't caught them doing anything but looking at each other, so what was the big deal? Free to move about the kitchen finally, Ailyna made a beeline for the fridge hoping to God there'd be some sort of alcoholic beverage within. Her eyes scanned the contents of the fridge and found nothing but a six pack of glass coke bottles. She sighed and took a bottle from the cardboard case in the fridge and shut the door behind her.

Now where would they keep a bottle opener in a place that didn't have beer? Ailyna pushed her hair back and began to search through the drawers of the island, finding nothing that even resembled a bottle-opener. She froze when she felt warm breath on the back of her neck, causing goose bumps to form on her skin. Turning around quickly she found the same stocky man she'd seen staring at Jean from the doorway behind her. His blue eyes locked immediately with hers and she hardly noticed when he took the soda bottle from her hand.

"You the new kid?" he practically growled at her in question form as a long, thin silver blade slid from between the knuckles of his right hand. She knew she stepped into a house full of mutants, but she couldn't help but watch with some curiousity at the slow metal growth from his hand. He stabbed the top of the aluminum cap and quickly bent and removed the bottle cap from the bottle of soda. The blade retracted back into his hand and he reached over with his other to rub his skin where the blade just went in, his forefinger and thumb touching his knuckle while his other fingers held the neck of the glass bottle. He then held the bottle out to her, as if he hadn't done anything but popped the cap off with a bottle opener. She took the bottle back from him without a word, still trying to figure out what to say back to him. Then it hit her that he'd called her a kid and she immediately knew that needed to be corrected.

"New teacher actually. Psychology. I'm not quite a certified professor yet, but close enough. My name's Ailyna. Do you teach anatomy, because you seem to be studying Dr, Grey every chance you get," she said to him as if the conversation existed in the most nonchalant way.

She figured she'd let him know she had seen him- Jean must've sensed him as well. Then faster than she could react, he lurched forward, placing his muscled arms on either side of her, trapping her against the island. He had cornered Ailyna against the island and for a second rage flashed in his eyes. She stared straight back at him, though she could once more feel his breath on her skin, the heat radiating from his body.

"I just wanted to let you know that I think your time might be spent better elsewhere," she informed him, leaving him the invitation. If he bit, great. If he didn't, she could see what other interesting psychological happenings would go on around here.

"Huh," he grunted, for once the one with the surprised look in his eyes. He sniffed like he could smell something in the air to tell whether she lied or told the truth, and must have decided she told the truth because he began to back off. He turned around and walked towards the door of the kitchen without a glance back at her. Ailyna almost felt disappointed. Men didn't usually resist her charm, regardless of whether she wanted a relationship or just a roll in the hay, so to speak. Ailyna decided to try one more shot, see if she could get him to bite.

"I never got your name- or what you teach here," Ailyna called after him, a slight pout forming on her face. She'd relaxed at the counter, still leaning against it, and took a sip from the Coke he'd opened for her. "Or where they keep the beer in this place!" Ailyna finally called out, hoping that last line might at least humor him, if not provoke an answer. She popped one hip out to the right, leaning her back into the marble counter. No, she certainly didn't look like the new professor but she didn't think she looked like a kid either. How could she look like a kid with these curves? She was about to give up hope as he passed through the doorway and around the corner, but she could hear him yell back.

"Name's Logan, kid, I teach art. And they don't keep beer in this place, but you can sneak some in. The old man would have a heart attack if he knew the amount of liquor people actually kept in this place," he said, leaning just far enough back so that she could see his face in the door frame.

He almost seemed to wink at her before disappearing finally. A small smug smile spread across Ailyna's lips. She'd succeeded in not only getting on his nerves, but his good side. Ahh, good old psychology experiments would never bore her. This would prove an interesting stay at the Xavier mansion. 


	3. Deception From An Old Friend

Smoke swirled around Logan's head, lingering in whisps in front of his icy blue eyes. The end of a particularly rare Cuban hung from his lips, the ashes gathered under the edge of the concrete fountain in the middle of Bayville town square. Logan, in all his years that he could remember back to, never thought he'd end up in a place as quiet as this.

Hell, he still couldn't believe he was there, had been for all that time. He'd gotten pulled into the lives of these fighters because he had a soft spot for young people who sought to figure out their identities, particularly because he didn't really know who he was himself. Fate hadn't made him stay with the X-men. He hardly wanted to join another team, get involved like he had with Alpha Flight. He never did get a chance to bang Heather Hudson, he thought with smirking regret. No, his dick had kept him in snobby Westchester County, New York, US of A, chasing after the long red hair and curvaceous body that that tool Scott Summers didn't know what to do with every night.

They'd lost her once, back at Alkali Lake a few years before. She hadn't been quite the same ever since they found her in an amnesiac ward in upstate New York, 50 miles from the dam. No, ever since they brought her home she'd been different, vibrant, more full of life. Most would chalk that up to Jeanie gaining more appreciation for life, but Logan, he sensed something different. Something edgier, more dangerous in her. Logan wasn't all that sure he liked that, but he chalked it up to the unhappy (for him) fact that Summers finally got the balls to propose to her.

As the cigar flickered out, Logan could already feel the burns in his lungs repairing themselves. His healing powers allowed him the perks of chain smoking and drinking as much as he wanted without ill effects. But the buzz hardly lasted anymore. Why bother then? Even the high that his own body regenerating used to bring didn't affect him much anymore. Nostalgia maybe, but he didn't smoke or drink for the effects. It probably reminded him of a happier time in his life, though he couldn't for the life of him remember what those memories were.

"So I said to him Logan, I says, 'Remy, if I ever catch your idiotic, schemin', no good, two-timin' head in that place again I ain't comin' near you 'til the sun burns out'," the brown-haired Southern woman on the other side of the tree said, leaning against it with the tops of her shoulders against the rigid bark.

Logan simply snorted in response to Rogue's tirade about LeBeau. If the scheming pickpocket had been up to anything, it likely involved money or jewels, not sex. Gambit's first love, risk-taking, couldn't hold a candle to what the kid clearly felt for the young woman on the other side of his tree but sure as hell still influenced his actions if they didn't concern her. He looked up to find her looking at him with her green eyes, an exasperated yet amused look on her face.

"If ya can't at least be a good friend an' listen when I'm talkin' to ya, think ya can be a gentleman an' offer a girl a smoke?" she asked him, grabbing onto one side of the tree with a gloved hand as she leaned around to stick her face near his shoulder.

A wind blew through, messing up the white whisps of hair that fell over her forehead. She hadn't decided to dye the streaks, though he thought that she probably didn't like having Magneto in her head. The kid had gotten pretty good at flying the X-Jet since the Alkali incident, probably because she felt some of the situation with Jeanie could have been prevented if she had known how to land the goddamn thing properly. It hadn't saved her relationship with Iceman though; she'd sought out the more edgy thief not long after the Dam incident. His eyes glanced at hers and then off into the distance.

The last rays of twilight had begun to fade from the sky, and the street lights illuminated the quaint, quiet shops of the little town. Quiet, normal and suburban, Bayville had fallen quiet on a week night, most of the moms and dads and superstar cookie cutter children in bed before the next day at work or school. He too once wished for a simpler existence, but long accepted he would never live a semblance of a normal life, not with his skeleton and his abominable past.

"Logan!"

Rogue pressed a yellow-gloved finger to his brown leather jacket, trying to get his attention away from his own thoughts. Logan snapped out of his gaze and refocused his eyes back within the park again, wondering when he'd become soft enough to daydream. Grimacing, he replied to her finally, a little annoyed that she thought he wasn't listening to her petty tirade. Women.

"These things kill you darlin'. What's yer idea of a gentleman?" he said, but stopped when she hit him again.

"Look," she said, glancing off towards the path that they'd taken in on his motorcycle.

The long red hair was unmistakeable even in the dim light, and for a second his heart beat just a little faster, his pupils went just a little wider. Then just as quickly he tensed up, standing foward from his relaxed position against the tree and moved so that Rogue was positioned behind him, though she didn't seem to like his handling of her by the punch she landed on the upper right side of his back.

"What the hell Logan?" she hissed, as they watched Jean approach.

"That ain't Jeannie," he growled back in a low voice as the woman approached.

He had gotten to know her smell pretty good. After she'd attempted to seduce him in the woods off of the X-Jet during the Alkali incident, he'd made damn certain that he didn't mistake her for Jean ever again. The bitch had a lot of nerve to show up there with that guise. To think that Jean had changed her mind for those few seconds... it was heaven and he had been fooling himself. The scars he'd left from his claws stabbing her in the Statue of Liberty ruined the illusion.

"Whaddya want Mystique?" he snapped, lurching forward at the woman and getting up in her face. He dropped his Cuban cigar and popped out his claws, sure that no one else was around.

'Jean' didn't flinch a bit, standing with her arms at either side, in a relaxed, strong stance. Her eyes looked at Wolverine with mild bemusement. She didn't even move as Logan growled at her, hands ready to pop open those impressive adamantium-coated claws of his. Her lips spread into a thin smile as her skin began to ripple and change, revealing her curvy blue form and yellow eyes. For a second she just stood there, letting her yellow eyes travel up and down Logan's form. But still she said nothing and Logan moved towards her, claws out and pointed at her as she cycled through Jean's form, once, then twice.

"Really Wolverine. It wasn't my idea," the blue vixen said finally, waving everything off like it wasn't any big deal that she had shown up in Logan's favorite form. She stopped switching into Jean's image and changed into a tall leggy blonde, dressed in tight-fitting running clothes.

Pulling his claws back in, Logan crossed his arms over his chest and relented the loss of the Cuban. If she'd come to fight, she wouldn't have approached them head-on. That meant she had something else up her sleeves.

"Erik expressed the need to get a message to Charles. We all know how fond Xavier is of me. So I found you instead," she said, her voice displaying a genuine hint of annoyance. Logan thought she smelled downright pissed about having to come here and talk to him.

"Face facts, X-man. We don't know who's behind Red Dawn. It accomplishes nothing for the mutant race. Before you start accusing us, we've looked into it. Mutants have died. Homo sapiens have survived, even if the scales are tipped in our favor. Magneto demands nothing less than flawless victory. Does this smell like his modus operandus to you?"

"For once ya sound sincere, Mystique," Rogue said, becoming more visible from behind the tree. While Mystique wasn't the most noble or savory of characters, she had been a decent foster mother to Rogue. Even if she had simply wanted Rogue to craft a protege out of her, Mystique could tell the truth when it would benefit her, and Rogue couldn't see how Mystique would benefit from lying in this situation. It still weirded her out to see Mystique looking just like the woman she called Mom before she ran from home. Besides, Logan could probably tell. He was the one who could smell liars after all.

"Yer guess is as good as mine, kiddo," he said, looking at her and not at Mystique. "Mystique can lie with the best of 'em," he finished.

"Fine, don't believe me. We don't need you to take care of this new threat from the humans. Erik simply wants you to stay out of our way," she gestured with her right hand, the blue skin blistering out and back to the peachy tone as she waved it.

"Don't waste your life protecting the animals who manipulated your gifts for their own purposes, Logan," she said with a cool, cold tone. Her voice and mouth hinted at a sneer as her vocals danced over the word 'animals' and as soon as she had come, she had decided to leave. Mystique turned and started to move away from them in a slow, contained pace, like she had been the suburbanite on a mid-evening jog all along. Blonde ponytail bouncing, Mystique made off like the most normal person in the world.

"Sounds like ol' Buckethead is real nervous about this Red Dawn thing, whatever it is," Rogue said, watching as her former foster mother ran off into the dark. She had her gloved arms crossed over her chest, hip popped to the side. Logan hadn't thought she was lying by scent, and Rogue didn't think so either. The real question remained in their heads though as Logan mounted his motorcycle and she climbed on after him, wrapping her arms tighly around his leather jacket.

"Yep. Looks like we better go talk to Charles," Logan said, revving up his machine before leaving the square behind. 


End file.
